Bibliographic record
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to determine if student confidence levels change when attending a series of five pre-semester orientation success workshops. This research was conducted at a Canadian Community College whose attrition rates for the Practical Nursing program within the host college average 36%. The workshop sessions occur prior to the student starting their program, and have two main purposes: to offer the student a connection to the college before they begin their program of choice, and to increase their confidence levels in their ability to fit into college life and be successful in their program of choice. Key Words: Student Retention, Student Orientation, Pre-semester workshops Background Research has shown that some of the ways institutions can address attrition issues in post-secondary education is through the use of orientation programs which provide a connection between student and institution. Further research states that if a student has the confidence to believe they will be successful in their program, they have a much higher degree of success in said program. For these reasons, a series of five pre-semester orientation workshops were developed for new Practical Nursing students. These workshops were developed with the researcher, Practical Nursing faculty, and with the approval and cooperation of the Dean of Community and Health Studies and Dean of Student Services. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of pre-semester success workshops on establishing a connection between student and institution, and analyzing student perceptions of confidence levels on their ability to persist and succeed for students who do attend said workshops. Limitations of the Study Limitations of this study include that the research was be conducted within a single college campus. Further, participants will be restricted to those students enrolled in the two-year Practical Nursing program at said college campus. Limitations also include the fact that participation in the pre-semester orientation success workshops was optional; therefore, selection bias makes it impossible to analyze the effect of the workshops separate from pre-existing effects present within participants. A further limitation is related to the actual number of participants who agreed to complete the two surveys. The pre-semester success workshops were capped at a limit of 60 participants. Forty students emailed and registered for the workshops. However only 25 were present at the beginning of the workshops (Pre) and 14 participants were present at the end (Post). It is impossible to state why attendance did drop off at the end without further investigation. Therefore, a limitation of this study is the fact that follow up is not possible due to the anonymity involved in the research. Review of the Literature Vincent Tinto's work on student retention issues may seem dated, however it continues to be referenced and used today as a basis for current research and literature. Tinto (1990) states that student involvement in an institution is imperative for retention programs to be effective. One of the ways to foster student involvement is by creating a culture where students are seen as valued members. Tinto states that regardless of student race, gender, and type of study, institutions that endeavour to establish a personal contact with students have increased retention rates. It is through personal connection between student and faculty members, and between student and institution that can convey a perception of value for students. Other factors such as a positive transition, connectedness, a positive social environment, and familiarity with the institutions policies and procedures are all factors that a college can assist with. Tinto further hypothesizes that positive connections with the institution should increase student goals, commitment, and persistence (Burgette & Magun-Jackson, 2008-2009). …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.021 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".